Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick believes the games industry is increasingly aligning with PC and open ecosystems, even as the idea of console-style gaming remains firmly rooted.
In a conversation with Squawk Box on CNBC, Zelnick said, “I think it’s moving towards PC and business is moving towards open rather than closed.” He added that while hardware may evolve, the experience of long-form, big-screen gaming isn’t going anywhere. “If you define console as the property, not the system… that’s never going away.”
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Zelnick says gaming’s future looks more ‘open’ than ‘closed’
His remarks reflect the flux surrounding console hardware today. Microsoft is developing a next-generation Xbox, yet also emphasises that “everything is an Xbox now”, a stance that blurs the meaning of console identity.
An observation highlighted by PC Gamer points out the contradiction that if the brand is platform-agnostic then what’s the incentive for players to buy new hardware at all?
Valve has further complicated that picture with the newly announced Steam Machine, a small TV-connected device that resembles a console but is actually a low-spec PC.
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According to PC Gamer’s reporting, this raises an uncomfortable question for Microsoft: Xbox is “one of the largest publishers on Steam,” but Steam games still can’t run on an Xbox console. If players can access Xbox titles on a Steam-ready PC box but not vice versa then the hardware equation changes dramatically.
Pricing for the Steam Machine hasn’t been disclosed, but the implications of cross-platform access are already becoming a talking point.
Despite Zelnick’s confidence in a more PC-centric future, an irony remains still that Grand Theft Auto 6 which is Take-Two’s biggest title, still has no PC announcement.
